Higher Education Exchange 2009

The Higher Education Exchange is an annual journal from the Kettering Foundation that serves as a forum for new ideas and dialogue between scholars and the larger public. Essays explore ways that students, administrators, and faculty can initiate and sustain an ongoing conversation about the public life they share.

The 2009 edition focuses on “the relationship between higher education and citizens.” Below is an excerpt from the introduction…

Often times in the course of our research, Kettering encounters a public that most professionals in higher education don’t see. It has been argued in the pages of this journal that higher education often sees clients, not citizens, especially when talking about service. Higher education has little to say to the everyday problems of citizens. A recent study by the California Campus Compact found that, overwhelmingly, community partners want even more communication and collaboration with higher education than they are getting now. Community partners see themselves as coeducators of students. They value the relationships they have with higher education and want to build even stronger relationships to foster deeper knowledge of and appreciation for the public’s work.

But all is not gloomy. There are always exceptions to the rule, thank goodness. MiamiUniversity’s president, David Hodge, recently vowed, “The historic view of a student as a receiver of knowledge can now be replaced by a view of the student as a creator of knowledge.” Can a similar sentiment about the larger public be far behind?

Some of the articles and essays in this volume are examples of these exceptions. Through this volume especially, we’ve presented a few narratives of experiences of citizens working alongside professionals in higher education. These stories are the stories of “outliers,” if you will, who understand and appreciate citizens as cocreators of knowledge.

– Deborah Witte, Editor of the Higher Education Exchange

…along with the contents of the journal…

Contents of the 2009 Edition

ForewordDeborah Witte

Public Scholarship or How to Assist in the Autopoiesis of Political CommunitiesNoëlle McAfee

Citizen-Centered Democracy: An InterviewMatt Leighninger

Moving Toward a Civic Mission: The Relevance of Universities in Natural Resource and Environmental PolicyMatthew McKinney

The Art of Trusteeship: An InterviewDeborahWadsworth

Following the Path of the Footbridge ForumDenise Dowling

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations By Clay ShirkyDana M.Walker, Reviewer